Текст книги "The Wheel of Darkness"

Автор книги: Lincoln Child

Соавторы: Douglas Preston
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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

Britannia

.”

“You read me fine. The idea is, by opening selected bulkhead hatches we can flood forward compartments one, two, and three. That will put us down by the head enough to lift our screws almost out of the water. The Britanniawill be DIW.”

“You’re asking me to

ram

you? Good God, have you lost your mind? There’s a good chance I’d sink my own vessel!”

“It’s the only way. If you approach head-on just a few points off our starboard side, moving not too fast—say, five to eight knots—then, just before contact, back one screw hard while engaging your bow thrusters, you could shear off our bows with your reinforced forward hullplates, swing free, and we would pass clear of each other on the starboard side. It’d be close, but it would work. That is, if you’ve got the helmsmanship to pull it off.”

“I’ve got to check with Command.”

“We’ve got five minutes to our CPA rendezvous,

Grenfell

. You known damn well you’re not going to get clearance in time. Look, do you have the knackers to do this or not? That’s the real question.”

A long silence.

“All right,

Britannia

. We’ll give it a try.”

68

CONSTANCE’S EYES FLEW OPEN, HER WHOLE BODY JERKING ITSELF awake with a muffled cry. The universe came rushing back—the ship, the rolling room, the splatter of the rain, the booming seas and moaning of the wind.

She stared at the

dgongs

. It lay in an untidy coil around an ancient scrap of crumpled silk. It had been untied—for real.

She looked at Pendergast, aghast. Even as she stared, his head rose slightly and his eyes came back to life, silvery irises glittering in the candlelight. A strange smile spread across his face. “You broke the meditation, Constance.”

“You were trying . . . to

drag

me into the fire,” she gasped.

“Naturally.”

She felt a wash of despair. Instead of pulling him out of darkness, she had almost been pulled in herself. “I was trying to free you from your earthly fetters,” he said.

“Free me,” she repeated bitterly.

“Yes. To become what you will: free of the chains of sentiment, morality, principles, honor, virtue, and all those petty things that contrive to keep us enchained in the human slave-galley with everyone else, rowing ourselves nowhere.”

“And that’s what the Agozyen has done to you,” she said. “Stripped away all moral and ethical inhibitions. Let your darkest, most sociopathic desires run rampant. That’s what it offered me as well.”

Pendergast rose and extended his hand. She did not take it.

“You untied the knot,” she said.

He spoke, his voice low and strangely vibrant with triumph. “I didn’t touch it. Ever.”

“But then how . . . ?”

“I untied it

with my mind

.”

She continued to stare. “That’s impossible.”

“It is not only possible, but it happened, as you can see.”

“The meditation failed. You’re the same.”

“The meditation worked, my dear Constance. I have changed—enormously. Thanks to your insistence that we do this, I have now fully realized the power given to me by the Agozyen. The power of pure thought—of mind over matter. I’ve tapped into an immense reservoir of power, and so can you.” His eyes were glittering, passionate. “This is an extraordinary demonstration of the Agozyen mandala and its ability to transform the human mind and human thought into a tool of colossal power.”

Constance stared at him, a creeping feeling of horror in her heart.

“You wanted to bring me back,” he continued. “You wanted to restore me to my old, conflicted, foolish self. But instead, you brought me forward. You opened the door. And now, my dear Constance, it’s your turn to be freed. Remember our little agreement?”

She couldn’t speak.

“That’s right. It is now your turn to gaze upon the Agozyen.”

Still, she hesitated.

“As you wish.” He rose and grabbed the neck of the canvas sack. “I’m through looking after you.” He moved toward the door, not looking at her, hoisting the sack onto his shoulder.

With a shock, she realized he had no more regard for her than for anyone else. “Wait—” she began.

A scream from beyond the door cut her off. The door flew open and Marya came backing in. Beyond, Constance caught a glimpse of something gray and unevenly textured moving toward them.

Where did that smoke come from? Is the ship on fire?

Pendergast dropped the sack and stared, taking a step backward. Constance was surprised to see a look of shock, even fear, on his face.

It

blocked the door. Marya screamed again, the thing enveloping her, muffling her screams.

As the thing came through the door, it was backlit for a moment by a lamp in the entryway, and with a sense of growing unreality Constance saw a strange, roiling presence deep within the smoke, with two bloodshot eyes, a third one on its forehead—a demonic creature jerking and moving and heaving itself along as if crippled . . . or perhaps dancing. . .

Marya screamed a third time and fell to the floor with a crash of breaking glass, her eyes rolling and jittering in her head, convulsing. The thing was now past her, filling the salon with a damp chill and the stench of rotting fungus, backing Pendergast into a corner—and then it was on him, inhim, swallowing him, and he issued a muffled cry of such raw terror, such agonizing despair, that it froze Constance to the marrow.

69

LESEUR STOOD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CROWDED AUX BRIDGE, staring at the S-band radar image of the approaching ship. It loomed ever larger, a phosphorescent shape expanding dead ahead on the radar screen. The Doppler readout indicated a combined closing speed of thirty-seven knots.

“Two thousand five hundred yards and closing,” said the second officer. LeSeur made a quick mental calculation: two minutes to contact.

He glanced at the more sensitive X-band, but it was awash with sea return and rain scatter. Quietly and quickly, he’d briefed the rest of the officers on his plan. He knew it was at least possible Mason had heard everything he’d said to the captain of the Grenfell: there was no failsafe way to block communications on the main bridge. But either way, once the Grenfellmade its move, the Britanniawould be hard pressed to respond.

Chief Engineer Halsey came up to his side. “I have the estimates you asked for.” He spoke in a low voice so the others wouldn’t hear.

So it’s that bad,

thought LeSeur. He withdrew Halsey to one side.

“These figures,” said Halsey, “are based on a direct collision with the center of the shoal, which is what we anticipate.”

“Tell me quickly.” “Given the force of that impact, we estimate the death rate at thirty to fifty percent—with almost all the rest seriously injured: broken limbs, contusions, concussions.”

“Understood.”

“With its draft of thirty-three feet, the Britanniawill make initial contact with a small shoal some distance from the main portion of the reef. By the time the ship is stopped by the main rocks, it will already be ripped open from stem to stern. All the watertight compartments and bulkheads will be breached. Estimated sinking time is less than three minutes.”

LeSeur swallowed. “Is there a chance it might hang up on the rocks?”

“There’s a steep dropoff. The stern of the ship will pull it off and down—fast.”

“Dear Jesus.”

“Given the extent of injury and death, and the speed with which the Britanniawill sink, there won’t be time to institute any procedures for abandoning ship. That means nobody aboard at the time of collision has any chance of survival. That includes”—he hesitated, glancing around—“personnel remaining on the auxiliary bridge.”

“ Fifteen hundred yards and closing,” said the second officer, his eyes fixed on the radar. Sweat was streaming down his face. The aux bridge had gone silent, everyone staring at the looming green blob on the radar scope.

LeSeur had debated whether to issue a general order warning passengers and crew to brace themselves, but he had decided against it. For one thing, using the PA would tip their hand to Mason. But more importantly, if the Grenfelldid the job right, the force of the lateral impact across the bow would be mostly absorbed by the enormous mass of the Britannia. It would be a jolt that might startle the passengers, or at worst jar a few off their feet. But he had to take the risk.

“

Twelve hundred yards.

”

70

ROGER MAYLES HEARD RUNNING FOOTSTEPS AND PRESSED HIMSELF into a cul-de-sac on Deck 9. A gaggle of passengers ran by shouting, gesticulating, on God knows what senseless, hysterical mission. In one sweaty hand he clutched a magnetic key that he kneaded and rubbed incessantly, like a worry-stone. With the other, he removed a flask and took a long slug of single-malt whisky—eighteen-year-old Macallan—and slipped it back into his pocket. His eye was already beginning to swell from the blow he’d received during a tussle with a hysterical passenger back in Oscar’s: it felt like someone was pumping air into it, making it tighter and tighter. Blood flecked his white shirt and dinner jacket from a bloody nose that had yet to stop leaking. He must look an absolute fright.

He checked his watch. Thirty minutes to impact, if the information he’d received was correct: and he had every reason to believe it was. He checked again to see if the hall was still clear, then staggered out of the cul-de-sac. He had to avoid passengers at all costs. It was Lord of the Fliestime on board the Britannia, every man for himself, and nobody descended into brutish behavior quicker than a bunch of rich assholes.

He made his way carefully down the Deck 9 corridor. Although there was nobody in sight, the distant screams, yells, pleas, and agonized sobbing were omnipresent. He couldn’t believe that the ship’s officers and security had virtually disappeared, leaving hospitality staff like himself at the mercy of these rampaging passengers. He had heard nothing, received no instructions. It was clear there was no plan to deal with a disaster of this scale. The ship was absolute bedlam, with no information to be had, the wildest rumors spreading like a brush fire in high wind.

Mayles slipped down the hall, the key clutched in his palm. It was his ticket out of this madhouse and he was going to spend it right now. He wasn’t going to end up being one of forty-three hundred people ground to mincemeat when the ship ripped its guts open on the Grand Banks’ worst shoal. The lucky ones who survived the impact would live another twenty minutes in the forty-five-degree water before succumbing to hypothermia.

That was one party he wasn’t going to attend, thank you very much.

He took another slug of the whisky and slipped through a door marked by a red exit sign. He ran down a metal staircase, his short legs churning, and paused two landings below to peer into the corridor leading to the half deck where the port lifeboats were housed. While the corridor was again empty, the shouts of frantic, angry passengers were louder on this deck. He couldn’t fathom why they hadn’t launched the boats. He had been part of the lifeboat drills and had ridden on a couple of freefall launches. Those boats were damn near indestructible, dropping into the water while you were safely buckled into a cushioned seat, the ride no rougher than a Disneyland roller-coaster.

As he came around the corner toward the outside half deck, the noise of the crowd increased. Wouldn’t you know it: a bunch of passengers had gathered at the locked lifeboat hatches, pounding and shouting to get in.

There was only one way to the port lifeboats and it was through the crowd. No doubt more frantic passengers had assembled around the starboard lifeboats as well. He advanced, still clutching the key. Maybe no one would recognize him.

“Hey! It’s the cruise director!”

“The cruise director! Hey, you! Mayles!”

The crowd surged toward him. A drunken man, his face afire, grabbed Mayles by the sleeve. “What the hell’s happening? Why aren’t we launching the lifeboats?” He gave his arm a jerk. “Huh? Why not?”

“I don’t know any more than you do!” Mayles cried, his voice high and tense, trying to pull his arm back. “They haven’t told me anything!”

“Bullshit! He’s going to the lifeboats—just like the others did!”

He was seized by another grasping hand and pulled sideways. He heard the cloth of his uniform tear. “Let me through!” Mayles shrilled, struggling forward. “I tell you, I don’t know anything!”

“The hell you don’t!”

“We want the lifeboats! You aren’t going to lock us out this time!” The crowd panicked around him, tugging at him like children fighting over a doll. With a loud rending noise, his sleeve came away from his shirt.

“Let go!” he pleaded.

“You bastards aren’t going to leave us to sink!”

“They already launched the lifeboats, that’s why there’s no crew to be seen!”

“Is that true, you asshole?”

“I’ll let you in,” Mayles cried, terrified, holding up the key, “if you’ll just leave me alone!”

The crowd paused, digesting this. Then: “He said he’d let us in!”

“You heard him!

Let us in!”

The crowd pushed him forward, suddenly expectant, calmer. With a trembling hand Mayles stuck the key in the lock, threw the door open, jumped though, then spun and tried to quickly shut it behind him. It was a futile effort. The crowd poured through, knocking him aside.

He scrambled to his feet. The roar of the sea and the bellowing of the wind hit him full in the face. Great patches of intermittent fog scudded over the waves, but in the gaps Mayles could see black, angry, foaming ocean. Masses of spray swept across the inside deck, immediately soaking him to the skin. He spied Liu and Crowley standing by the launch control panel, along with a man he recognized as a banking executive, staring at the crowd in disbelief. Emily Dahlberg, the meatpacking heiress, was beside them. The knot of passengers rushed toward the first available boat, and Liu and Crowley quickly moved to stop them, along with the banker. The air grew thick with shouting and screaming, and the horrifying sound of fists impacting flesh. Crowley’s radio went skipping and spinning across the deck and out of sight.

Mayles hung back. He knew the drill. He knew how to use these lifeboats, he knew the onboard launch sequence, and he would be damned if he was going to share one with a bunch of crazy passengers. Fighting between the mob and Liu’s group was intensifying, and the passengers seemed to have forgotten about him in their eagerness to get into the nearest boat. He could get away before they even knew what was happening.

Liu’s face was bleeding freely from half a dozen cuts. “Get word to the auxiliary bridge!” he cried to Dahlberg before the angry mob overwhelmed him.

Mayles walked past the violence, toward the far end. As he did so, he casually pressed a couple of buttons on the launch control panel. He’d get in a boat, launch it, and be safe and away. The GPIRB would go off and he’d be picked up by nightfall.

He reached the farthest boat, keyed open the control panel with a trembling hand, and began activating the settings. He watched the crowd at the other end, fighting with the banker and stamping on the now motionless forms of Liu and Crowley. A head turned toward him. Another.

“Hey! He’s going to launch one! The son of a bitch!”

“Wait!” He saw a group of passengers coming toward him.

Mayles jabbed in the rest of the settings and the stern boarding hatch swung open on hydraulic hinges. He rushed for it but the crowd was there before him. He was seized, dragged back.

“Scumbag!”

“There’s enough room for all of us!” he shrilled. “Let go, you morons! One at a time!”

“You last!” An old, wiry geezer with superhuman strength belted him aside and disappeared into the boat, followed by a surging, screaming, bloody mob. Mayles tried to follow but was seized and dragged back.

“Bastard!”

He slipped on the wet deck, fell, and was kicked into the deck rail. Grasping it for support, he pulled himself to his feet. They were not going to keep him out. They were not going to take his boat. He grabbed a man crowding in front of him, slung him down, slipped again; the man rose and charged him, and they struggled in a tight embrace, staggering against the rail. Mayles braced himself with his foot, stepping on the rail to gain leverage, while the crowd surged and fought to get through the narrow hatch.

“You need me!” Mayles cried, struggling. “I know how to operate it!”

He pushed his assailant back and made another lunge for the hatch, but those inside the boat were now fighting to close the door.

“

I know how to operate it!

” he screamed, clawing over the backs of those trying to keep the door open.

And then it happened—with the spastic, abominable acceleration of a nightmare. To his horror he saw the wheel turn, sealing shut the hatch. He grabbed at the wheel, trying to turn it back; there was a clunkas the release hooks opened—and then the lifeboat shot down the ramp, jerking Mayles and half a dozen others forward. He tumbled down the greased metal rails with them, out of control, unable to stop, and—very abruptly—suddenly found himself in a free fall toward the roiling black ocean, somersaulting in slow motion, head over heels.

The last thing he saw before he struck the water was another ship, blowing out of the sea-mist dead ahead of the

Britannia

, coming at them on a collision course.

71

LESEUR STARED OUT THE FORWARD WINDOWS OF THE AUXILIARY bridge. As the wind had increased the rain had lessened, and now the fog was breaking up, allowing occasional views ahead across the storm-tossed seas. He stared so hard he wondered if he was seeing things.

But suddenly there it was: the

Grenfell

, emerging from a pocket of mist, bulbous bows pounding the seas. It was coming straight at them.

As the

Grenfell

appeared, there was a collective intake of breath from the aux bridge.

“

Eight hundred yards.

”

The Grenfellmade her move. A sudden boiling of white water along her starboard aft hull marked the reversal of the starboard screw; simultaneously, a jet of white water near the port bow signaled the engagement of the bow thrusters. The red snout of the Grenfellbegan to swing to starboard as the two ships closed in on each other, the giant Britanniamoving much faster than the Canadian vessel.

“Brace yourselves!” LeSeur cried, grabbing the edge of the navigational table.

The maneuver of the Grenfellwas almost immediately answered by a roar deep in the belly of the Britannia. Mason had taken the ship off autopilot and was reacting—alarmingly fast. The ship began to vibrate with the rumble of an earthquake, and the deck began to tilt.

“She’s retracting the stabilizers!” LeSeur cried, staring at the control board in disbelief. “And—Jesus—she’s rotated the aft pods ninety degrees to starboard!”

“She can’t do that!” the chief engineer yelled. “She’ll rip the pods right off the hull!”

LeSeur scanned the engine readouts, desperate to understand what Mason was trying to do. “She’s turning the Britanniabroadside . . . deliberately . . . so the Grenfellwill T-bone us,” he said. A horrifying, vivid split-second image formed in his mind: the Britanniacoming about, offering her vulnerable midsection to the ice-hardened Grenfell. But it wouldn’t be a straight T-bone; the Britanniawould not have time to come around that far. It would be even worse than that. The Grenfellwould strike her at a forty-five-degree angle, cutting diagonally through the main block of staterooms and public spaces. It would be a massacre, a slaughter, a butchery.

It was instantly clear to him that Mason had thought through this countermove with great care. It would be as effective as crashing the ship into the Carrion Rocks. Opportunist that she was, the staff captain had seized her chance when she saw it.

“

Grenfell!

” LeSeur cried, breaking radio silence, “back your second screw! Reverse the bow thrusters! She’s turning into you!”

“Roger that,” came the extraordinarily calm voice of the captain.

The

Grenfell

responded immediately, water churning up all around its hull. The ship seemed to hesitate as its bows slowed their ponderous swing and her forward motion decreased.

Underneath them, the screaming, grinding shudder grew as Mason goosed the rotating aft screws to full, 43,000 kilowatts of power deployed at a ninety-degree angle to the ship’s forward motion. An insane maneuver. Without the stabilizers, and aided by a beam sea, the Britanniayawed as it heeled over even farther: five degrees, ten degrees, fifteen degrees from the vertical, far beyond anything envisioned by her engineers in their worst nightmares. The navigational instruments, coffee mugs, and other loose objects on the aux bridge went sliding and crashing to the floor, the men gripping whatever they could get their hands on to keep from following.

“The crazy bitch is putting the deck underwater!” Halsey cried, his feet slipping out from under him.

The vibration increased to a roar as the port side of the liner pressed down into the ocean, the lower main deck pushing below the waterline. The seas mounted, battering the superstructure, rising to the lowest port staterooms and balconies. Faintly, LeSeur could hear sounds of popping glass, the rumble of water rushing into the passenger decks, the dull noises of things crashing and tumbling about. He could only imagine the terror and chaos among the passengers as they and the contents of their staterooms and everything else on the ship tumbled to port.

The entire bridge shook with the violent strain on the engines, the windows rattling, the very frame of the ship groaning in protest. Beyond the forecastle the Grenfellloomed, rapidly approaching; she continued yawing heavily to port, but LeSeur could see that it was too late. The Britannia, with its astonishing maneuverability, had turned quartering to her ,and the patrol ship was going to strike them amidships—2,500 tons meeting 165,000 tons at a combined speed of forty-five miles per hour. She would cut the Britanniadiagonally like a pike through a marlin.

He began to pray.

72

EMILY DAHLBERG PAUSED IN THE CORRIDOR LEADING FROM THE port lifeboat deck, catching her breath. Behind her, she could hear the cries and screams of the mob—for a mob it was, and of the most primitive, homicidal kind—mingling with the roar of wind and water through the open hatches. Many other people had had the idea to head for the lifeboat stations, and a steady stream of passengers raced past her in a panic, heedless of her presence.

Dahlberg had seen enough to know that any attempt to use the lifeboats at this speed was sheer suicide. She’d seen it for herself. Now she had been tasked with getting this critical information to the auxiliary bridge. Gavin Bruce and Niles Welch had sacrificed their lives—along with another boat full of passengers—in getting that information, and she was determined to convey it.

She began moving again, trying to orient herself, when a burly man came barreling along the corridor, red-faced and goggle-eyed, crying out, “To the lifeboats!” She tried to dodge but wasn’t fast enough; he clipped her and sent her sprawling to the carpet. By the time she had risen to her feet again, he had vanished from sight.

She leaned against the wall, recovering her breath, keeping back from the stream of panicked people heading for the lifeboat deck. It shocked her how people were prone to the most grotesque displays of selfishness—even, or perhaps especially, the privileged. She hadn’t seen the crew and staff carrying on, shrieking and yelping and running around. She couldn’t help but think of the contrast with the dignified and self-restrained end of the passengers on the Titanic. The world had certainly changed.

When she felt herself again, she continued down the corridor, keeping close to the wall. The auxiliary bridge was at the forward end of the ship, directly below the main bridge—Deck 13 or 14, she recalled. She was currently on Half Deck 7—and that meant she had to ascend.

She continued along the corridor, past deserted cafés and shops, following the signs for the Grand Atrium—from which, she knew, she could better orient herself. Within minutes she had passed through an archway and reached a semicircular railing overlooking the vast hexagonal space. Even at this most extreme of times, she could not help but marvel at it: eight levels high, with glass elevators running up two sides, graced with innumerable little balconies and parapets draped with passionflowers. Grasping the railing, she looked out and down into the Atrium. The sight was shocking. The King’s Arms—the elegant restaurant five levels below—was almost unrecognizable. Cutlery, half-eaten food, trampled flowers, and broken glass were strewn across the floor. Overturned tables, spilling their contents, were scattered everywhere. It looked, she thought, as if a tornado had come through. People were everywhere—some running across the Atrium, others circling aimlessly, still others helping themselves to bottles of wine and liquor. Cries and shouts filtered up toward her.

The glass elevators were still operating, and she headed toward the nearest. But even as she did so, a loud rumble filled the vast space: a growl from deep within the bowels of the ship itself.

And then the Atrium began to tilt.

At first, she assumed it was her imagination. But no: looking up at the great chandelier, she saw it was slanting to one side. As the deep growl grew in intensity, the chandelier began to vibrate, tinkling and jangling crazily. Dahlberg quickly backed into the protection of an archway as pieces of cut crystal began raining down, bouncing like hail among the tables, chairs, and railings.

My God

, she thought.

What’s happening?

The heeling grew more acute and she gripped the brass railing fixed to a pillar at one side of the archway. With a scraping noise, chairs and tables in the restaurant below started sliding to one side, slowly at first, then gathering speed. Moments later, she heard the crashing and breaking of glass as the wall of bottles on the elegant bar at one side of the restaurant came down.

She clung to the railing, unable to take her eyes from the carnage occurring below. Now the great Steinway concert grand in the center of the Atrium began to move, sliding on its casters until it careened headlong into the huge statue of Britannia, which shivered into pieces and fell in a ruin of broken marble.

It was as if the ship were caught in the viselike grip of a giant and, despite the groaning, protesting engines, was being forced onto its side. Dahlberg gripped the railing as the slant grew worse and all manner of things—chairs, vases, tables, linens, glassware, cameras, shoes, purses—came tumbling past her from the balconies above to land in the Atrium with staccato thuds and crashes. Over the din of cries and yells she heard a particularly sharp scream from above; a moment later, a short, thickset woman with frizzy blonde hair and wearing a supervisor’s uniform came hurtling past from an upper balcony, still screaming, and careened into the piano below with a horrifying crash, the ivory keys scattering, the strings popping in a bizarre symphony of high– and low-pitched twangs.

With a squeal of metal, the elevator nearest to her shuddered in its vertical housing, and then—with a popping of glass that ripped through the entire Atrium—the entire tube shattered all at once and began to fall in slow motion like a glittering glass curtain. The wreck of the elevator—now nothing more than a steel frame—was jarred out of its channel and swung loose on its steel cable. She could see two people aboard, clinging to brass bars inside the elevator cage and screaming. As she watched in horror, the elevator frame swung crazily across the vast interior of the Atrium, spinning as it went, then slammed into a row of balconies on the far side. The people inside were thrown into the air, tumbling down, down, to at last be lost in the chaotic jumble of furniture and fixtures now jammed up against the lower wall of the King’s Arms.

Dahlberg gripped the brass rail with all her strength as the floor continued to dip. A new sound suddenly erupted from below, loud as a massive waterfall, accompanied by a rush of cold salty air so strong it nearly blew her off her perch; then white water poured into the lowest level of the Atrium and began boiling up, a vicious surge churning with pulverized furniture, fixtures, and broken bodies. At the same time the huge chandelier above her head finally ripped lose with crack of iron and plaster; the huge glittering mass fell at an angle, crashed into the parapet just opposite her, then cartwheeled down the side of the Atrium, throwing off great masses of glittering crystal like pulverized ice.

The cold, dead smell of the sea filled her nostrils. Slowly—as if from far away—she began to realize that, despite the awful destruction taking place all around her, the ship didn’t appear to be sinking; at least not yet. Instead, it was heeling over and shipping water. The engines continued to roar, the ship continued to surge forward.

Dahlberg collected her thoughts, tried to drown out the sounds of crashing glass, roaring water, and screaming. Much as she wanted to, there was nothing she could do to help anybody here. What she could do, hadto do, was inform the bridge that the lifeboats were not an option as long as the ship was moving. She looked around and spied a nearby stairwell. Carefully gripping the rail, she half crawled, half clung her way along it until she reached the stairwell, canted at a crazy angle. Gripping the banister with all her might, she began hauling herself upward, one step at a time, heading for the auxiliary bridge.

73

SPECIAL AGENT PENDERGAST STARED AT THE BIZARRE THING OF MIST and darkness that enveloped him. Simultaneously, he felt the cabin shudder and lean; a deep and powerful vibration hammered up from below. Something violent was happening to the ship. He fell backward, tumbled over an armchair, and slammed into a bookcase. As the ship tilted farther he could hear a sonorous fugue of destruction and despair sounding throughout it: screams and cries, crashing, breaking, the deep thrum of water along the hull. Books came tumbling down around him as the cabin rolled to a desperate angle.